Oregon ballots are being returned in droves. As the Oregonian reported earlier today, one in five voters have already returned their ballots. The piece briefly mentions that return raters are higher in smaller counties, but doesn’t go any further. So, I quickly rank ordered the counties with respect to return rates for democrats, republicans, and all voters:

What to make of this? Not only do the small counties have the highest turnout thus far. The largest counties are also near the bottom in turnout rates. Washington county, the second largest in the state, is second lowest in all three categories. The largest county in the state, Multnomah county, is ranked 31st for democrats and overall turnout, and 27th for republicans.

What explains this relationship between county size and initial turnout rate? Here’s a thought: The largest counties include the largest cities in the state–Multnomah county houses Portland, Washington county, Hilsboro. There are higher proportions of young and minority voters in cities, and those are the voters less likely to turn out during midterms. That would, at least, partially explain the current low rates of turnout in those two counties.

This can’t wholly explain the result, though, since most minority and young voters are democrats, and republican rates are low as well. Perhaps it’s just due to the sheer number of voters in the large v. small counties. Fewer voters need to return their ballots in Gilliam county for 40% of their ballots to be returned.

Whatever the explanation,we have seven more days of voting, and how the numbers change over the next week will determine who and what wins this November.

The Early Voting Information Center

We are a non-partisan academic research center based at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Professor Paul Gronke and his team conduct research on early voting and election reform, predominantly in the United States. In addition to our scholarly research, we have worked on projects with the Pew Center on the States, the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the Center for American Progress and a number of state and local elections offices.

The Early Voting Information Center is proud to have co-hosted the inaugural Election Sciences, Reform, and Administration Conference in July of 2017. More information can be found on the conference website.

Professor Gronke's academic credentials--including his curriculum vita, courses taught, and other research papers--can be found at his personal Reed web page.